


im/permanence

by silent_h



Category: UnREAL (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Relationships, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21851533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silent_h/pseuds/silent_h
Summary: sometimes, when other people aren’t watching, your daemon flickers.
Relationships: Rachel Goldberg/Quinn King
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	im/permanence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [definefreedom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/definefreedom/gifts).



> i apologise for the lateness and also if this isn't exactly what you wanted?? but i saw daemons in your likes and literally could not stop myself
> 
> warnings: nothing's in detail but still warnings for the kind of things that happen in this show (so swearing, drugs/alcohol mentions, rachel's mum just like as a person)
> 
> also like. rachel really doesn't like herself all that much

you won't be able to put in words what's wrong with this situation until you're much older, and further away from your mother's nightmare. for now, all you know is that you feel small and bad and in pain, and you _don't know how to make it stop_.

you need to be bigger. you need to be _dangerous_.

ray snaps at your mother with teeth larger than her chameleon's head, and it's the first time you see the two of them flinch.

you decide to stay a wolf forever.

(actually, you decide to stay like that until you're safe

you just don't know what safe means then)

—

after you've finally _escaped_ but before you really know what to do with the dizzying freedom of being a person instead of a _patient_ , you go to a local talk on daemons.

(you’d been scouring pop psychology books, ones written by people who _didn’t_ have medical degrees, when you realised that there was a whole other side of you that you should probably look into too)

it's not the first time you've been around other people like this, but it's the first time where the people _talked_ like this and you feel your sense of self slip even further with each thing the class goes through.

it’s a new list of symptoms, ways in which you’re fucked up that you hadn’t even _known_ about before.

the fact that your daemon is the same gender as you isn’t just odd, it’s almost regarded as _obscene_ in some places; the fact that she doesn’t speak isn’t just antisocial, it’s one of the common factors associated with sociopathy.

(sociopath: your mom tried to assign that label to you once, and you hadn’t been able to put into words how wrong that was

everything is so _much_ is always so _much_ you feel _everything_ it never _stops_

in retrospect, you should've stopped trusting her much much earlier)

the main thing, though, the thing that nobody has ever pointed out to you, the thing that even your mother hadn't thought to ask you about is the feeling of _rightness_ that came one day as they realised that their daemon had found their form.

you’re eighteen, and it’s the first time you realise that, for everyone else, settling _isn’t_ the same as choosing.

—

you experiment.

changing forms is easier than holding one now you don't have the fear to keep you wound tightly together.

it's hard to stay fixed when you're on the meds that make your world slow, and even harder when you're on the ones that make it fast.

you don't lose shape when you're drunk or having sex, but you do lose it with coke or ecstasy.

you push the limits of how fast she can shift in different situations, and you stretch your tether until you feel it gripping at your lungs.

you push and you push and you push and you feel so desperately and painfully empty for something you can't name.

—

you've been defaulting to a canine in public for so long that you'd never thought to experiment with anything else.

now you're away from anyone who knew you before, you take awhile to pick something that will suit you better. something that won't make people look at you.

by the time you walk into your first class in college you're accompanied by a small tabby.

(nobody looks at you sideways if you're more distant than most people are with their daemons. cats are aloof, after all)

—

from the stories you’d heard of quinn king, you’d been expecting some kind of wildcat, with claws bigger than your hand. or maybe a snake, something fast and vicious.

instead, a tiny black and white and grey bird eyes you from its perch on her shoulder, head cocked to the side. they have the same piercing stare; the same shrieking laugh too, though you won't realise that until much later.

“so you’re goldberg,” she says, lazily.

“that’s me,” you say. ray is sitting carefully at your feet, body tensed and claws sheathed: eager and open to learn but posing no threat.

“hm.” she watches you through burning eyes, before cocking her head to the same side as her daemon. “what do you think, nicky,” she says, voice still pitched loud enough for you to hear. “you think they’ve actually sent me one with balls this time?”

her daemon, nicky, _shrieks_ , something high and loud and unsettling that you feel deep in the back of your mind. quinn’s eyes flick down to where your daemon is still sitting, fur still unruffled and paws still casually placed, and her lip quirks up.

(it doesn’t take you long to realise how stupid you’d been. quinn king, eternally pulling the strings from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to tear you apart, could never be as obvious as a daemon with _teeth_ )

—

the first time you _produce_ someone you feel such a high that ray almost loses her grasp on your form.

quinn cackles through the walkie, echoed by nicky’s howl-shrieks of joy. “now _that's_ how it's done, ladies and gentlemen.”

she hipchecks you when you return to the control room, eyes dark and deep. nicky opens his wings, flapping them once, twice, before sitting back in position on quinn’s shoulder.

“where have you _been_ all my life, goldie?”

—

“i’m not letting you go,” she tells you, later. “you understand that, right?”

nicky is on the floor for once, so close to your own daemon that they're almost touching.

“never,” he says. “we're never letting you go.”

—

“you're _shitting_ me.”

“from quinn and _nikephoros?_ ”

it's a good day today. you've made two girls cry and brought your remaining girl up to wifey status. you'd barely opened your mouth before you got another girl to do something so deliciously vicious that quinn had already gone to chet before you got to the control room, needing to burn off something that _you_ put there.

“at least it’s not _ray_ and _rachel_ ,” quinn says, laughing into her glass. “jesus, what a pair.”

(you don’t think you’ll ever tell her ray’s full name. _getray_ : faithful

god, you really fucking hate your mom sometimes)

“quinn and rachel,” you counter, before taking a sip from your own shitty whiskey, and nicky shriek laughs.

“i know i hire you to know what i’m thinking, but you know you're not _actually_ my daemon, right, weirdo?” quinn says, fondly.

(it's the first time she calls you that. it already sounds like _i love you_ )

“yeah,” you say. “no shit, quinn.”

(you tell yourself that it doesn’t sound like _i love you too_ )

—

“it’s like that saying,” jeremy says, beer bottle in hand, “about opposites attracting?” he waggles his eyebrows. his bulldog daemon is at his feet, tail wagging as she snuffs at ray.

you’ve been drunker and you’ve been hornier, but you’ve had an excellent day of producing and a not so excellent day of watching quinn shift as she catches chet’s eyes across the room.

(you know that some of the crew have spun your avoidance of jeremy into some sort of schoolgirl crush, but the fact is that you’re not exactly in the mood to be around people with dog daemons right now

you’ve always been good at swallowing your own bullshit, but you can’t quite manage to convince yourself that you feel nothing when you catch nicky perched happily on the back of chet’s mutt)

“oh _that_ saying? don’t think i’ve ever heard it.”

he laughs, and it’s loud and empty. dull. _safe_.

in the distance, you hear quinn’s cackle and nicky’s shriek laugh. if you concentrate hard enough, you can almost pretend that you can’t hear chet’s deep rumble underneath it.

you take the beer from jeremy’s hand and down it.

“maybe you can teach me it.”

—

you’re still the freak, the loner, the one who isn’t quite _right_ , but quinn’s... _quinn_ ness almost seems to overshadow that.

there’s a rumour on set about quinn and her daemon. that she knows too much, that he sees more than he should. there's a whole line of people who'll swear up and down that they've seen him fly much further away than a normal daemon should, and even more who’ll swear that there’s a broom hidden somewhere in quinn’s office.

(“please,” quinn says, rolling her eyes. “you think i’d still be in this shitty business if i had fucking _magic?_ ”

“uh, yeah,” you reply, and she hoots with laughter until there are tears in both of your eyes)

—

“hey,” she says, head jerking towards ray. “you okay? he's looking more bedraggled than usual.”

(it's been a whole year since you last saw your parents and you stayed up until four this morning replaying the dozen or so messages that your mom left you last night on a loop

running your hands through ray's fur is a new thing, and you're not entirely sure it's working out better than when you used to just drag your nails up and down whichever part of yourself that was the closest

you still can’t muster up the energy to care but you find that quinn’s disappointment overweighs any temporary relief it would give)

“uh, it's she, actually,” you correct, because it's easier than anything else you might have to tackle today.

things have changed in the years since you took that first class, perceptions have shifted slightly, and certain qualities have become more accepted.

the stereotype that same gender daemons is a sign of same gender attraction (or, worse in most people's eyes, a sign of gender misalignment) still hasn't quite faded though.

(it's not something you've ever felt like examining but you're attracted to women in the exact same way you're attracted to men. men just don't make you feel as bad when you sleep with them

spending too much time around women reminds you of all the ways you’re failing at being one yourself)

quinn is older than you, as much as she’d kill you if you ever brought it up. she spends most of her time around old white men who are older than the both of you combined, and who have prejudices that you’ve probably never even come into contact with yet.

you work on a reality show that won’t ever have a black winner, and who you’d had to fight hard the season before to even _consider_ hiring a (white, for fuck’s sake !) non-american contestant. you can’t even begin to imagine what conversations about sexuality and gender sound like in those conference rooms.

“shit, sorry,” quinn says, expression unchanging. “is _she_ okay?”

—

quinn is screaming at your mother, nicky shrieking at her and you—

and you—

you blink.

quinn is singing. it's something low and rough and flat. for all her talents, she's never had a great voice.

(you've never heard anything so beautiful)

you're curled into her side. "hey," you mumble, and you didn't realise she was running her fingers through your hair until she stops.

“hey,” she says. “nice to have you back, goldie. i'll murder your mother if you promise to alibi me.”

“i love you,” you say, and for the first time in your life, it's not a question.

she snorts, fingers resuming their movements. “okay, weirdo.”

—

jeremy...happens, again and again until it’s become a _thing_. most people do.

someone catches sight of the thing you pretend is a complete human being and falls for it. you call it _love_ , and, for a short while, you even start to _believe_ it.

(they blur together after a while)

—

you don’t know why you were so _cynical_ about all this. you’re in _love_ and jeremy loves you, loves _you_ , and his daemon branly is steady and calming and she is so _perfect_ everything is _perfect_.

—

“hey rach? are you doing okay? ray’s looking like she’s been pulled through a hedge again.”

“i’m fine, quinn, she’s just being a pain. she needs to learn to let go sometimes, y’know? to like, actually realise when we’re in a good place.”

—

you don’t mean to, is the thing. you’re good at calculated descents, at timed explosions. good at creating a big bang to disguise your thousands of mounting disasters. it’s your job and you love it and you love you and you love jeremy and you love quinn and you are good and great you are healthy and succeeding and _happy_.

ray has stopped trying to catch your eyes, but she sits on your shoulders sometimes, and curls around your ankles when you’re sleeping.

this feels different.

 _you_ feel different.

(you’d _believed_ it)

you haven’t had a manic episode in what feels like _years_ , and maybe you yell a little louder than you would, because at the corner of your eye, ray is _flickering_ and they can’t see they can’t see you so you have to be _loud_ you have to be _fast_ you have you you have to you—

you—

—

therapy helps more than it used to. sobriety, too.

the world is loud and you are small and it. it helps, somehow.

(ray still won’t look at you)

“maybe we should, like, stay. or something,” you tell her, one night. she’s curled up in your lap, a big warm mass of fur and bones: a wolf, like you’re kids again. “i think we need, uh. i think we need to be like, a good person or some shit.” you sink your hands into her fur; she flickers and your hands are curled around a butterfly. “you know, if you wanted to tell me something it’d be easier if you like, just _told_ me.”

—

“you look like shit.”

you shouldn’t have missed her, but god, you missed her more than _anything_. you’ve been through withdrawal for enough things to recognise what falling off the wagon feels like.

“thanks quinn. feel free to just. ambush me.”

nicky’s hopping about at her feet, silent for once. you wonder if they’ve ever argued like you have.

“you gotta come back, goldberg.”

“i can’t—”

“you’re just wasting all your talent here holed up in some...depression motel, or whatever the fuck this is—”

“i _can’t_ ,” you repeat. “i’m— there’s something wrong with me, quinn.” you bring your head up, and quinn’s face is shuttered. “i’m _sick_. i need to like, not be around all that shit, y’know?”

quinn snorts. “fuck off,” she says, immediately, and you’ve never heard her sound so _vicious_ before. “there’s _nothing_ wrong with you.”

she says it like it’s a statement, like it’s a fact.

(ray still isn’t looking at you, but she’s lifted her head up to meet nicky’s eyes)

“i,” you say. “what.”

“i said, _there’s_ _nothing wrong with you_.” she steps forward until she’s pressed up against you, and then she cups a hand around your cheek. “do you hear me?”

“i—,” you try, struck speechless by your reflection in her dark eyes, and then it’s as if _something_ slams into your chest.

your duck back out of her grasp immediately, hand coming up to clutch at your chest.

ray is shifting.

ray is _shifting_ , and nicky is slowly and steadily grooming her. he doesn't falter as he experiences feathers then fur then scales then fur.

“quinn,” you choke, and her eyes flick down towards the floor, and then rise to meet yours again. she doesn’t blink.

“come back to work, rach.”

“okay,” you say. “okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> named daemons:
> 
> rachel - unsettled; getray (yiddish), faithful  
> quinn - loggerhead shrike (aka butcherbird); nikephoros (greek), bringer of victory  
> jeremy - bulldog; ébranle (french), to shake, disturb, set off


End file.
